xii, 379 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : 22 cm

"This is the first fully-documented study of one of Scotland's most emotive subjects for many years. It traces the origins of the Clearances from the eighteenth century to their culmination in the crofting legislation of the 1880s, showing how the process of clearance was part of a wider European movement of rural depopulation. Eric Richards describes the appalling conditions and treatment suffered by the Highland population, yet at the same time illustrates how difficult the choices were that faced even the most benevolent of landlords in the face of rapid economic change." "The Clearances were the most rugged and painful of many attempted 'solutions' to the problem of how to maintain a population on marginal and infertile land. In drawing attention away from the mythology to the hard fact of what really happened, The Highland Clearances offers a balanced analysis of events which created a terrible scar in the Highland and Gaelic imagination, the historical legacy of which still lies unresolved as we enter the twenty-first century."--Jacket

Includes bibliographical references (pages 337-369) and index

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